🥳 2024 Push Notification Quick Start Guide

New year, new notifications

Let’s get your push notifications set up.

My goal is to create actionable advice you can apply to your business immediately. I don’t want to pontificate on high-level strategy that leaves you thinking WTF did I just read.

Could you answer these 3 quick questions here to help me create better content for you? Thanks 🙇‍♂️

We’ll start from the beginning of a user’s journey:

Did they do anything on the first open?

• Send a simple “Come back and start X…”

Did they explore the app but not start a trial?

• “Start your trial to unlock X, Y, and Z.” Explain the value they’ll receive.

• Ask about goals during onboarding and personalize the message based on these

Did they start a trial but not complete your core action?

• Try the format “Do X to get Y”

• “Start your workout to start making progress” → Sell the benefits and value, not the features

Did they start a trial and complete an action?

• Send a notification the next day at the same time they signed up and say: “Continue your progress…”

𖣯 A simple way to get started is with a matrix of active vs inactive and paying vs free

🆓 Inactive and free:

• Get them back into the product

• Once in the product, try a custom flow that welcomes them back.

• Make them feel good, and sell the value of the product differently because whatever you tried the first time didn’t work

🏃‍♂️ Active and free:

• Show the value they’re missing out on to get to a purchase

• Discounting can work for this audience

💸 Inactive and paying:

• Explain all the value they have access to and how to get started

• Risk of churn (see the money flying away emoji)

🏃‍♂️💰 Active and paying:

• Build strong habits and deepen use cases

• Opportunity for upsells (but don’t erode your goodwill)

🎯 Focused and specific goals for each comm always beat generic, broad messages

What else?

📆 Does your app have a daily use case?

• Implement a daily reminder notification

• Ask users during onboarding what time they’d like the reminder to build more investment

Create a daily recommendation personalized to the user’s progress or past behavior.

• It doesn’t make sense for everyone, but Blinkest does this well with their “Your daily pick is ready” notification

Don’t have the setup for a true personalized recommendation?

• Add a “recommendation” notification and pick an action that aligns with a user’s goals or correlates with higher retention

😴 Short-term inactivity messages:

• Reference the exact number of days e.g. “It’s been 7 days”

  • Use 7 days, 14 days, 21 days, and 30 days. If they haven’t done anything after 30 days, they’re gone for now

Longer-term re-engagement messages:

• Talk about new releases, changes in the product, or updates

• They stopped using it for a reason, so something new or different can get them excited to come back

Did a user go to purchase or start an action but not follow through?

• Add abandonment-type messages.

• Send after 30 mins - 1 hour (usually, the sooner the better)

• Reference the action they didn’t complete and call out the benefits or value of completing it

The classic example is an abandoned cart message, but the same behavior-triggered setup can be extended to other use cases.

• These can be purchase-based, featured-based, or general usage

  • If a user looks at a new feature but closes the app, send a message

  • If a user finishes onboarding but closes the app – send a quick nudge notification to remind them if they forgot

Upsell notifications

• Do you have different tiers in your product?

• Educate them on the value they’re missing out on and all the benefits they’ll get

Seasonal notifications

• Holidays, Back to school, Summer, Winter, Fall, etc. Can you tie your messages or offers back to what’s happening in people’s lives?

Location-based notifications

• Does your app offer access to something in the real world? Can users benefit from knowing what’s available to them after traveling?

• Apple Maps sent me a notification when it saw I was in the airport

Gamification based notifications

• Has the user unlocked a reward or made progress? Is there a new challenge they could try?

• These are awesome opportunities for positive, engaging messages

Milestone, anniversary, or birthday notifications

• Everyone likes a celebration!

• 1 month, 6 months, 1 year…you get it

Winback notifications

• If a user churns, educate them on the value they are missing out on

• Use loss aversion-based messaging to try to get them to stay or resubscribe

• Offering a discount to recently churned users works well. They had the willingness to pay once, so they’re likely to convert with a discount

New Product Updates or Features

• People like “New” - share what new features you’ve released

• These can also be effective re-engagement tactics for lapsed users

  • Not everyone cares about the same things, so share updates on features relevant to what they used in the past

Extending and deepening use cases

• Once someone has done the first core actions, help them move deeper into the product

  • Do they use it in the morning? Check-in with them at night

  • Do they only use one feature? Educate them on tangential features that apply to their goal

  • Help them discover the full value of your product

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ℹ️ Want to see the full Whimsical board of all the different push notifications I’ve received recently? Click here for the full board.

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Tips on sale notifications:

• Keep them simple and communicate the offer upfront.

  • Don’t get too cute. You shouldn’t need clever language if the offer is good

  • Adding a sense of urgency or that this offer is special can work well e.g. “ending soon” or “best offer ever”

• Send multiple sale messages, but don’t overload users. 2-3 is good

  • Sale announcement, sale ending soon, and if it’s a longer sale you could also send a sale ending in 24 hours

    • You may want to reserve the 24-hour message for people who have clicked or engaged but have not purchased

  • You can also offer a discounted subscription a few days after someone signs up.

    • The longer you wait, the lower the conversion will be. But the lower the cannibalization of people who would have bought full price.

    • A/B test it, but often showing a discount nearly immediately if someone doesn’t convert on the first paywall will drive more revenue than waiting. People lose excitement after the first day. Or forget and lose interest entirely.

Should push notifications be used for monetization or engagement?

• The most accurate answer is both but with nuances

• I find push most effective for driving immediate engagement with a feature in the app

• Push notifications have a small amount of copy, so convincing someone to buy in that space is tricky. Unless they were already considering it

• Push paired with an in-app message can work well

  • Push gets them into the app, and the in-app message gives more room for education and context on what you’re asking

I find push works best for quick behavior changes and reminders. It can provide a small monetization boost, but shouldn’t be relied upon for selling.

Remember, push isn’t the answer to all your problems. If someone taps a push notification, there needs to be a compelling product on the other side.

Finally, A/B test your messages! The same thing won’t work for every product.

That’s all folks.

Happy New Year! 🎊 🍾